The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1887-01-15
Correspondence Baltimore County Union.
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
SCIENCE AND LOVE.


SCIENCE AND LOVE.
British sages have been considering the science
of falling in love. At the recent British Associa-
ton meeting, Sir George Campbell suggested that
vast race improvement would be brought about
by pairing individuals according to physiological
fitness instead of yielding to foolish ideas about
love. This led Mr.. Grant Allen to show that the
instinct of love is usually excited by complement
tary natures and the biologically excellent traits
of youth, beauty, health and strength. This con-
dition is most favorable to improvement, and JUS
titles the old theme of the novelist and the poet.
1t is marriage on some other basis-for money,
rank or other practical reasons-that results in
deterioration. Yet the word is urged for science
that it may so influence public sentiment that
even more fitting selection will be made under the
unconscious direction of its teachings-that, in
fact, it may educate love.
NUMBER OF HUMAN TEETH.
The researches of Prof. Windle have led him to
the conclusions as presented to the British Asso-
citation for the Advancement of Science that mans
original teeth included six incisors in either jaw ;
that two from each jaw have gradually disappear
ed that this loss is due to the contraction of the
anterior part of the palate that this process of
contraction will probably 60 on and result in the
loss of two more incisors ;~and that the conical
shape of many of the supernumerary teeth indi-
Gates reversion to the primitive form of tooth.
CHEAPER GAS.
A greatly cheapened method of making water
gas was lately described to the French Academy of
Sciences, and is attracting much attention in
Europe. As usual, a jet of superheated steam is
directed into retort full of incandescent coke,
when the oxygen unites with some of the carbon,
s-rhydrogen is liberated. The novelty of the
process consists in leading the gases to second
retort filed with some red-hot refractory material,
and there introducing superheated steam, which
seizes upon the carbonic oxide to form dioxide
and liberates more hydrogen. The carbonic d.
oxides and liberates more hydrogen. The carbonic
dioxide is then removed by milk Of lime bath.
A ton of coke thus produces about $4,000 feet Of
gas, or about eleven times as much as is usually
yielded by ton Of COAL This gas is suitable for
heating purposes, bat requires carburetfng before
use for lighting.
CURIOUS AFFECTION.
The Berlin Medical Society has received re-
port by Mons. Levin, describing an affection that
seems to be peculiar to:.workers in silver. 1t ap
pears in the form of round oval spots of blush,
hue on the skin, which may reachl the size of a
fve-cent nickel. They are GENERALLY on the back
of the left hand, and can only be accounted for BY
supposing that the silver in solution falls upon
scratches, where the body fluids give rise to some
chemical change producing the peculiar color
ICE RIVERS.
Ordinary glaciers are accumulations of ice de-
scending along valleys from snow covered eleva-
lions. They are ice-streams, 200 to 5000 feet
deep or more; fed by the SHOWS and frozen mist OF
regions above the limit of perpetual frost. They
stretcn on 1900 to 1000 feet below the snow line,
hecsuse they are SO large that the heat of summer
cannot melt them. Some of them reach down into
open cultivated tracts, the extremities OF the
Grindelwald and Chamouni glaciers, for instance,
being found within few hundred feet of the gar
dens and houses of the Inhabitants of the valleys
The best known glaciers are those OF the Alps
numbering $780, as Prof Helm has just ascertained
and covering total area of more than 500 square
miles--but important ones occur also in the
Pyrsnees the mountains of Norway, Spitzbergen,
Iceland, the Caucasus, the Himalayas, the south
ern extremity of the Andes, in Greenland, and on
Antarctic lands One of the Spitzbergen glaciers
stretches eleven miles along the coast, and pro-
jects in icy cliffs 100 to 400 feet high. The
great Humboldt glacier Of Greenland, north of
the seventy-ninth parallel, has breadth Of forty
FIVE miles at the foot, where it enters the sea-
This glacier is but one of many in that icy land,
in the interior of which, according to Nordenskjod
one may pass over a vast ocean of ice and snow,
leo miles long and 400 miles wide, without see-
ing plant, stone, or patch of earth.
MISCELLANEOUS.
A study of the water-spouts observed on or near
the Gulf Stream has proven to Mr.. II. B. Gibson,
of Harvard College, that they are much less rare
in winter than might be supposed The dates
of their occurrence appear to coincide with the ex-
tension of cold northwest winds, or "cold waves"
from the land out over the relatively warm sea.
The problem of aerial navigation is to be at
tackled by means of balloon of colossal size,
which is said to be nearly completed in Berlin
It isto be 500 feet in length, fifty feet in diam
eter; and to weigh AZ, 600 pounds. Two steam en-
gines of fifty horse power each to furnish pro-
polling power.
The only medical journal published in Egypt
is called Ell Thifua (:'the cure''), and is issued
monthly in Arabic, its principal contributors be-
ing Egyptians and Syrians.
The case has been reported Of golden plover
which alighted on vessel in the Pacific after o
pauseless fight from land of at least 1900 to
$500 miles.
A novel Partisan schemeis floating exhibition
for bringing French products to the view of peo-
pie Of other countries. vessel of $500 tons has
been provided, and the first voyage will be to the
coasts of Central and ovuth America.
Prof. virchow has completed very large collec-
ton of observations the color of the hair, eyes
and skin of children in German schools, number
ing as many as 6,758,2S7 individuals.
An Australian has invented an electrical ma
chine gun which he claims is capable of firing
100 rounds "every few seconds" from any posi-
tion and in any direction. Experienced officers
have recommended the apparatus.
Instead of the few simple varieties of lettuce
fornoorIv orown not Iass than sixty-fve varieties